Once Upon a December
by come.josephine.95
Summary: For twenty-two years, she had forgotten everything but his eyes and the song he sang to her.


_Summary: After hitting her head climbing onto the lifeboat in the wee hours of April 15__th__, 1912, a young Titanic survivor suffered amnesia and woke up not knowing who she was or where she was. There was just one thing that stayed in her head- the image of a blue-eyed young man who she could only describe as an angel. As the woman raises her baby alone in a world that has abandoned her, she tells the child everything she can remember about the man and the song he used to sing to her. Songfic. Oneshot. _

Once Upon a December

_Dancing bears  
Painted wings  
Things I almost remember,  
And a song someone sings  
Once upon a December_

The baby she held in her hands was the most beautiful creation she'd ever seen in her life- or at least, the part of her life that she could remember. Everything about her was perfect- her delicate skin, joyful smile, clear blue eyes... just like the man in her dreams.

She didn't remember anything before waking up on the _Carpathia_. Although it had been hard to swallow at first, it didn't take her very long to figure out how she'd ended up there. It was all over the papers after all; it was all anybody on board was talking about. Somehow, she'd been one of the lucky ones who had survived the sinking of the _Titanic_. She had no idea why she was on it, where she'd come from, who her family was, or even what her name was. The only memory she had of life before the _Carpathia_ was the man she met every night as she drifted off to sleep.

In her dreams, he whispered a name in her ear... Rose. That must have been her name. So she was Rose. Just Rose. She was 'just Rose' for a little while, but as memories of the mysterious man from her dreams slowly flooded back, she added a last name to that moniker. Dawson. It wasn't her last name, she knew that. It was his, but whoever he was, she had loved him.

When the ship docked in New York, she had those three things to her name besides the dress on her back. The name Rose, which was hers, the name Dawson, which was not, and the beautiful man with sandy blond hair and crystal blue eyes who visited her every night and whispered her name in her ear.

And then there was the song. _Come Josephine in my flying machine going up she goes- there she goes._ Whoever he was, he had sung that song to her. Other details of her life flitted in and out of her mind- lacy ball gowns, fancy parties, water lapping up against a wall... sometimes there was a feeling of total panic, of utter chaos. More often than not, though, there was the feeling of flying.

_Someone holds me safe and warm,  
horses prance through a silver storm,  
Figures dancing gracefully,  
across my memory_

All those other pieces of the puzzle never really worked themselves out in her mind, sometimes tormenting her until she felt like tearing at the seams of her own existence. Now, thoguh, holding her baby girl in her arms, the only thing she felt was calm and love for the beautiful human she had created. She didn't know who the father was, but deep down she had a feeling it was the man from her dreams- the man named Dawson. Sometimes she wished she knew his first name, so that she could find a way to name her daughter after him. Maybe he was named Nathan- then she could name the baby Natalie. Or maybe he was Alex, and she could be Alexandra. Unfortunately, she didn't know what his name was, so she settled for Josephine. That was the name from their song, so it must have been something special.

She held Josephine close to her, keeping her safe and warm. She imagined the man from her dreams holding her that way, protecting her from the storm that was coming. She didn't know where she knew him from, if it had been from her childhood or her teenage years or her young adulthood. Sometimes she thought that he might have been on the Titanic with her, holding her tight as the ship plunged down into the North Atlantic. She didn't want to think about that possibility though, because it would have meant that he was dead.

She knew she was never going to see him again, but that didn't mean he wasn't out there somewhere. Thinking of her. Imagining holding her in his arms. Hoping that someday, by some slim chance, they'd meet again.

Sighing, she rocked her baby girl and sang to her the song that she'd heard a thousand times before, every night as she drifted off to sleep.

"Oh! Say! Let us fly, dear! Where, kid? To the sky, dear! Oh you flying machine, jump in Miss Josephine!"

Her voice was soft and melodic, and it lulled the baby girl straight to sleep. She didn't stop singing, though, because, in a way, she was singing for herself, too.

"Ship ahoy! Oh joy, what a feeling! Where, boy? In the ceiling! Ho, High, Hoopla we fly! To the sky so high!"

She felt a stray tear run from her eye and down her cheek, landing on Josephine's tiny, bald head. That image made more tears come, and all of a sudden she felt very much alone. She had no one in the world, save for the kind woman who's taken her in and given her a room in her apartment. She lived in New York City, which wasn't the nicest place, but at least she had a roof over her head. That had always been good enough, but now that she had a child to provide for, things were going to have to change.

She wanted to take her baby girl to California. That would be a lot of fun. Maybe they'd live in Santa Monica, and visit the pier every day. That always seemed fun and exotic to her.

Never had she wished for the man to still be with her more than she wished it then. She wished for him to be sitting there, beside her, holding her hand and stroking his daughter's little head. She wished he could be there to sing their song to Josephine- after all, he was the one who sung it to her in the first place.

_Someone holds me safe and warm,  
horses prance through a silver storm,  
Figures dancing gracefully,  
across my memory_

Josephine was five years old now. So much had changed in the last five years. Her mother had made a fair bit of money as a moving picture actress, and she'd bought a little cottage with a white picket fence in Santa Monica. It seemed like all of her dreams were coming true, but she still wasn't fully happy. She wished she knew more about her life before Josephine was born, so that she could tell her about her history.

She wished she remembered what had happened while she was on the _Titanic_- that would have been a wonderful story for her daughter to carry with her for the rest of her life. She wished she could tell her more about her father. Oh, she'd already told Josephine everything she knew about him- that he was a handsome man with blond hair, lightly tanned skin and beautiful eyes just like hers. If only there was a name to the face and a story to the name. If only he could see her now, living a life that she'd made for herself, loving their amazing daughter.

Every morning, Josephine would race downstairs where her mother was sure to be making breakfast. She'd wrap her tiny arms around her mother's legs and nuzzle her little head of bright red curls into her waist. That always reminded her of the man from her dreams- the feeling of being held in his arms, being able to believe that everything would be okay.

Then there were the times when Josephine would tear through the gate and into the house, crying about a scrapped knee, waiting for her mother to take her into her arms and make all of the pain go away. Those were the times that she felt the most lost and panicked. Memories of water rushing in, surrounding her, reaching up to her waist, flooded through her body. Sometimes, as she wiped away her daughter's tears, she recalled looking down into a deep, black sea below, feeling that she was most certainly going to die.

Whenever she felt like that, she only had to close her eyes for a moment and picture his angelic face, whispering beautiful words into her ear.

"Up, up, a little bit higher! Oh! My! The moon is on fire! Come Josephine in my flying machine going up she goes, there she goes! Going, up, on all, goodbye!"

Whenever life got tough, whenever it seemed like she and her daughter were utterly alone in this world, she would tiptoe into Josephine's room late at night, lay down beside her, and sing their song. Even though everything else from her past life was gone, those words would always be there.

_Far away, long ago  
things I yearn to remember  
and a song someone sings  
Once upon a December_

Twenty-two years from the day she woke up on board the _Carpathia_, with no idea who she was or where she was going, she stood in front of her daughter, beaming with pride. Today was Josephine's wedding day- a day that she herself had never been blessed enough to have. Some nights, she would lay in bed, wishing she and the man from her dreams could have had that special day. Today was not about them, though. It was about their daughter. Their beautiful, loving, amazing daughter.

She truly didn't know where she'd be if it wasn't for Josephine. She had saved her from all of the pain and loneliness that would have awaited her in America. She still didn't know who she was, who her family was, where she came from or what she had been doing onboard the maiden voyage of the _Titanic_, but she knew who she had become- a proud and loving mother of the most wonderful girl in the world.

Josephine wore a raw silk white gown with layers of lace trailing from the skirt. She and her mother stood in front of the full-body mirror in the room she had grown up in. All of her bridesmaids, dressed in lavender, were getting ready in her mother's room, but she had wanted to spend these last few treasured minutes with the woman who had brought her this far.

Her bright red curls, exactly like her mother's where hanging loose down her back and entwined with baby's breath. Everything about her was so like her mother, except for her eyes. Looking deeply into them, the woman who called herself Rose Dawson saw a more clear picture of the man from her dreams that she'd ever seen before. All of a sudden, all of the emotions of the past twenty-two years built up in her chest and she couldn't suppress the urge to cry.

Sniffling away a few stray tears of her own, Josephine wiped her mother's away with her thumb. And then she remembered.

Jack.

"It's okay, Mom," Josephine said, her voice breaking. "Mom, can you sing it again? One last time."

After all these years. Jack.

Rose swallowed her tears and nodded, feeling both immeasurable joy and pain at the same time. Of course she would. Jack would have wanted her to, after all.

It would always be times like those, when she sang that song to her beautiful baby girl, that she most remembered the feeling of flying- the feeling of his hands around her waist, her arms reaching up towards the sky, the man named Jack whispering those beautiful words in her ear.

"Come Josephine in my flying machine going up she goes... there she goes..."

_And a song someone sings  
Once upon a December..._


End file.
